Of course, another super rich white guy, who is set for life, wants to gut Social Security and Medicare because “we can’t afford it.”

Why is it that the people howling the most about ripping apart the social system, who complain the loudest about us being unable to afford Social Security and Medicare, are those who profited so heavily from the public’s largesse?

Alan Simpson spent his life working as a politician, followed by going on the speaking circuit or whatever it is that he does when he talks about butchering Social Security and Medicare while promoting tax cuts. It must be nice knowing that he’s set for life with the best health care plan, and a retirement plan unknown to most working Americans. And our friend, fellow “Democrat” Erskine Bowles also did well working in finance followed by the White House, then a large state university followed by his own speaking circuit gigs.

One does wonder how much they intend to give up from their own fat government benefits, as part of our “common sacrifice.”

Many of us have completely had it with rich, white guys like this proudly speaking to the media about how much gutting and shredding they think is necessary to “save the system,” while refusing to budge on their own massive tax cuts. They’ve all lived high on the hog at our expense, and now we’re giving them an easy forum for promoting this rich-guy assault on the system.

When is enough enough for these people? Much like sending a bill to Texas as the cost of seceding, let’s send a bill to these pampered fat cats for everything we’ve given them, and tell them all to shove off. They’ve cost us enough — quite literally trillions — and now they want to cost us more, by ripping apart the social fabric of America.

BLANKFEIN: You’re going to have to undoubtedly do something to lower people’s expectations — the entitlements and what people think that they’re going to get, because it’s not going to — they’re not going to get it.

PELLEY: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid?

BLANKFEIN: You can look at history of these things, and Social Security wasn’t devised to be a system that supported you for a 30-year retirement after a 25-year career. … So there will be things that, you know, the retirement age has to be changed, maybe some of the benefits have to be affected, maybe some of the inflation adjustments have to be revised. But in general, entitlements have to be slowed down and contained.

PELLEY: Because we can’t afford them going forward?

BLANKFEIN: Because we can’t afford them.

Someone please help me refresh my memory, but how did we afford to give away trillions of dollars to Wall Street, to save their lifestyle, so they could continue giving themselves huge bonuses while the rest of us lost our business and our homes?

I don’t recall any complaints back in 2008 and 2009 about the middle class not being able to afford the bail out of people like Blankfein, do you? Or any talk during the Bush years of the entire country not being able to afford his massive tax cuts that broke the budget?

Chris in Paris
An American in Paris, France. BA in History & Political Science from Ohio State. Provided consulting services to US software startups, launching new business overseas that have both IPO’d and sold to well-known global software companies. Currently launching a new cloud-based startup. Full bio here.

The bailout money went to CHINA!! When the Chinese realized they had bought millions of mortgage backed securities that were fraudulently registered and that were never going to be paid back, they went to Hank Paulsen and Ben Bernanke and demanded the money back or they were ‘going to send their people here’ to claim the land and property they had title to. That’s why HP and BB went to Congress and demanded money no questions asked or ‘there would be martial law’. I imagine a Chinese invasion followed by reclaiming of US citizen’s property in 1/2 acre plots would have caused a bit of consternation, no?

Blankfein (Goldman Sach’s CEO) and Cote (Honeywell’s CEO) are on the same page:
It’s impossible: The richest men in the country want to cut the benefits to the poorest. They have no cards on the table since they do not need or use Medicare, Medicaid or Social Security They pay only the minimum amounts to social security as the multi -millions they earn are not subject to the tax. It’s the “let them eat cake philosophy” so they can increase their persona; wealth, of the ultra rich and famous in action.Let then make an equitable contribution.

He wants it privatized so he can charge brokerage fees and be a middle man to the social security insurance fund. Just because Wall street greed and their reps on the hill blow a lot of hot air about it doesn’t mean it will happen. A simple adjustment to the Social Security Cap by abolishing that cap loophole completely maintains the social security insurance fund forever.

Here is the social security cap defined: Yearly income OVER 109 thousand is not subject to a social security deduction from your paycheck – so if you make less than 109 thousand – 100% of your earnings goes into the calculation for the social security insurance deduction you see on your pay stub – if you make over 109 thousand say 209 thousand then only half of what you earn is subject to the social security insurance deduction – its just more unfair, un-level playing field, special favor bull for the rich that has gotten this country in so much trouble. “We The People in order to form a more perfect union” right?

and now the CEO of Honeywell says the same thing. Corporate media gets corporate America to recommend stealing our SS & Medicare. Having stolen everything else, this is the last few dollars left to we the people. Encouragingly, all the comments at CBS are calling bullshit on these guys.

I never supported it. I personally thought that if the banks got bailout money, so should all of the casinos in Las Vegas. After all the banks lost out on bets they made and then asked the government for a hand-out. All of the banks should have been allowed to go bankrupt and then put all of the CEO in jail.

That is only true if those who earn above the cap get nothing in return for their higher SS payments. By that I mean if someone who makes $10 million per year and pays $620,000 in SS taxes would still only receive benefits equal to someone who makes $106,800 and pays $6,621 a year.

I watched the viewscast. Scott Pelley, of the cloying gravitas, did not even question the 25 year work history. If you start working full time at 20, that is a 46 year work history for my generation, a 48 year work history for my son’s. If you live an average life span, that is 10-12 years collecting benefits.

Two millionaires sitting and discussing my selfishness is more than I can stand. A pox on both their houses.

Those numbers are also misleading, in that they’re a gross aggregate of all income levels.

People with money and access to healthcare live longer. Those who are poor and depending entirely on Social Security and Medicare to get by die much younger. Before SS/Medicare were passed, the poor died younger still.

We can afford Social Security and Medicare just fine. In fact, America — the richest nation on the planet — could afford to expand them. We could even eliminate poverty in America, just like that.

All we have to do is remove the payroll tax cap and make it progressive. We could easily wipe out the entire deficit, too, by returning to the Clinton era tax rates, permitting Medicare to negotiate with medicine and health care providers, taxing all income (including capital gains) as regular income, and settling for a military only larger than 50% of the rest of the world combined.

The only time such “luxuries” such as Social Security and Medicare are unaffordable is when rich plutocratic bastards refuse to help support the society, the economy, and the country that enabled them to be come richer than Mammon in the first place. And not a one of them seems to realize that in a Demand Depression, further depressing the ability of poor and middle class people to afford basic necessities only deepens the downward spiral.

We can’t afford Blankfein and his ilk. If income inequality had not increased wildly in the past 30 years, Social Security would be almost fully funded. It’s simple: remove the cap on income subject to SSI tax. Stop blaming the victims of income inequality policies aggressively promoted by the FIRE sector (finance, insurance, real estate and energy) and supported by their paid cheerleaders in Congress.

During the time of the bailouts, many people were saying that every single one of those individuals, CEOs, board members, et al. who required a bailout should have been fired and had their entire assets forfeited or seized as part of the cost of getting government money.

But, no, they weren’t even made to sacrifice their exhorbitant salaries. They weren’t fired, they weren’t arrested, they were rewarded for destroying the American economy. They were rewarded for committing the most massive economic fraud in American history. Of course they’re going to be shits. Why wouldn’t they be? They’ve learned the lesson that being antisocial pays.

So whose fault is it that these people, these wealthy entitled people who personally benefitted to the tune of millions of dollars from taxpayer benevolence, are snottily commenting about Social Security on national TV?

Who could it be, who let them off with nary a smack on the wrist? Who could it be?

Blankenstein wouldn’t be talking such smack, I bet, if he was thrown bodily out of a moving van onto Wall Street in his underwear, such underwear being his sole remaining possession in the world, as should have happened after the bank crisis.

I read at Think Progress that eliminating the wage cap on the SS tax would keep system solvent for 75 years. Surely people earning over the cap could afford the tax. Sounds like the howling is selfish and political. Those greedy elderly and pensioners!!!

Well, I don’t think that someone’s going to be pulling a guillotine out of their coat pocket with an extra magazine of guillotine blades and flash beheading 20 people in as many seconds, but thanks for playing.

According to the SS administration, a man retiring in 1990 at age 65 would be expected to live an additional 15.3 years in which to collect benefits. That is up from 12.7 years in 1940. A woman retiring in 1990 at age 65 is expected to live an additional 19.6 years. I don’t know where he got his 30 year retirement number. http://www.ssa.gov/history/lifeexpect.html

The questions you bring up (and ones form the commenters as well) are really good questions. Too bad Scott Pelly never bothered to bring any of them up while interviewing him. Lame Stream Media indeed.

WHere up his ass did he grab this comment…. “Social Security wasn’t devised to be a system that supported you for a 30-year retirement after a 25-year career”
25 year career would mean you started to work at the age of 40….which means you retire at 65.
So EVEN him saying that stupid sentence shows he’s using a tested talking point from some think tank.
MOST people start working full time at age of 22. Age 22 to age 65 is a 43 year career,
I HOPE someone FOLLOWS up as to WHERE he got that Talking point of 25 year career.